Disparate Love
by rikitikitavi8
Summary: Not all love is the same. Different people need different things. These are drabbles on the different forms love takes for characters in Sailor Moon.
1. Suffocating the Wind

"You're going to fight me on this, aren't you?"

"With my dying breath, if necessary."

"Why?"

"Because I'll destroy you if I don't. I'll suffocate you."

"Silly girl, you can't suffocate the wind."

"If I let myself, Jed, I'll never let you go. I'll be jealous and possessive, and you, you'll end up hating me. I can't do that to myself, not again. I'm just a selfish child with no redeeming qualities."

"Firebird, I wouldn't have you any other way. I'm not a possessive man, I probably won't give you the signs of affection you deserve. I'll mock you at every chance, and if you leave, I'll let you go. Because I know that you'll always come back to me, and I'll wait, forever if necessary."

"Arrogant ass."

"Everyone knows fire needs air." She opened her mouth, but he pushed his finger to her lips, "What they don't know is that air needs fire just as much."

A single tear rand down her cheek, and his hand wiped away, cupping her face, he pulled her close and kissed her eyelids. When he pulled back, there was a small smile on her lips. And he laughed a small laugh before wrapping his arms around her and tucking her head under his chin.

And they stood together for a long, long time.


	2. Two Sides of One Whole

Their love wasn't about candlelight dinners or bouquets of flowers or heart felt declarations. Those would embarrass them. It was quiet, it was comfortable. Unwavering support and understanding. They eloped so that they didn't have to deal with all the fuss that came along with a wedding. They didn't need or even want it. Private vows for a private couple. They never showed each other anything but courtesy in public. Only at night would they act as any other couple, but they never talked about it. They didn't talk about love. It worked for them.

There was only one time that one broke the barrier, and that made it all the sweeter. She had been in the library, and asked him to watch her books as she picked out another. He smiled and waved her off, watching as she left. She didn't look back, but then, he didn't need her to. When she came back, there was a new book on top of her stack, she peered at it curiously, and it fell open in her hands, the passage was underlined in black ink:

"_Aristophanes professed to open another vein of discourse; he had a mind to praise Love in another way, unlike that either of Pausanias or Eryximachus. Mankind; he said, judging by their neglect of him, have never, as I think, at all understood the power of Love. For if they had understood him they would surely have built noble temples and altars, and offered solemn sacrifices in his honour; but this is not done, and most certainly ought to be done: since of all the gods he is the best friend of men, the helper and the healer of the ills which are the great impediment to the happiness of the race. I will try to describe his power to you, and you shall teach the rest of the world what I am teaching you. In the first place, let me treat of the nature of man and what has happened to it; for the original human nature was not like the present, but different. The sexes were not two as they are now, but originally three in number; there was man, woman, and the union of the two, having a name corresponding to this double nature, which had once a real existence, but is now lost, and the word "Androgynous" is only preserved as a term of reproach. In the second place, the primeval man was round, his back and sides forming a circle; and he had four hands and four feet, one head with two faces, looking opposite ways, set on a round neck and precisely alike; also four ears, two privy members, and the remainder to correspond. He could walk upright as men now do, backwards or forwards as he pleased, and he could also roll over and over at a great pace, turning on his four hands and four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air; this was when he wanted to run fast. _

_"Now the sexes were three, and such as I have described them; because the sun, moon, and earth are three;-and the man was originally the child of the sun, the woman of the earth, and the man-woman of the moon, which is made up of sun and earth, and they were all round and moved round and round: like their parents. Terrible was their might and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts were great, and they made an attack upon the gods; of them is told the tale of Otys and Ephialtes who, as Homer says, dared to scale heaven, and would have laid hands upon the gods. Doubt reigned in the celestial councils. Should they kill them and annihilate the race with thunderbolts, as they had done the giants, then there would be an end of the sacrifices and worship which men offered to them; but, on the other hand, the gods could not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained. _

_"At last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said: "Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased in numbers; this will have the advantage of making them more profitable to us. They shall walk upright on two legs, and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will split them again and they shall hop about on a single leg." He spoke and cut men in two, like a sorb-apple which is halved for pickling, or as you might divide an egg with a hair; and as he cut them one after another, he bade Apollo give the face and the half of the neck a turn in order that the man might contemplate the section of himself: he would thus learn a lesson of humility. Apollo was also bidden to heal their wounds and compose their forms. So he gave a turn to the face and pulled the skin from the sides all over that which in our language is called the belly, like the purses which draw in, and he made one mouth at the centre, which he fastened in a knot (the same which is called the navel); he also moulded the breast and took out most of the wrinkles, much as a shoemaker might smooth leather upon a last; he left a few, however, in the region of the belly and navel, as a memorial of the primeval state. After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together, and throwing their arms about one another, entwined in mutual embraces, longing to grow into one, they were on the point of dying from hunger and self-neglect, because they did not like to do anything apart; and when one of the halves died and the other survived, the survivor sought another mate, man or woman as we call them, being the sections of entire men or women, and clung to that. They were being destroyed, when Zeus in pity of them invented a new plan: he turned the parts of generation round to the front, for this had not been always their position and they sowed the seed no longer as hitherto like grasshoppers in the ground, but in one another; and after the transposition the male generated in the female in order that by the mutual embraces of man and woman they might breed, and the race might continue; or if man came to man they might be satisfied, and rest, and go their ways to the business of life: so ancient is the desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature, making one of two, and healing the state of man. "_

She looked at him, needing no explanation, and held out her left hand. And on her fourth finger he slid a sapphire ring.

* * *

The part in italics is not mine, it comes from an internet transaltion of Plato's Symposium. Where, aptly enough, the characters describe the nature of love. I always liked Aristophanes' version.

Oh, yeah, this is Ami and Zane, I hope it was obvious, but its possible that it was too obscure.


	3. Those Words

He could remember the day clearly, it was just another lazy summer afternoon. She had dragged him to the park because "the roses were lovely this time of year", and even though he knew that rose season was spring, he allowed himself to be convinced in the middle of August. He found that he couldn't refuse her most things. They were sitting next to the pond, she had whimsically dipped her toes in the water, squealing if a fish might bite them. He sat next to her, his back supported by a tree. He listened to her chatter, it was one of the most soothing sounds he knew. Just as he knew that his silence was soothing to her. But, this day that he remembered distinctly instead of mixed with the others, she gave him a bright grin and asked:

"Have you ever done it?"

He had started briefly, did she mean what he thought she meant? But seeing her curious eyes, he realized it was accidental, she was more mischievous looking when she was wild.

"Done what?" he remembered asking.

"Told someone that you loved them."

He shook his head slowly, "Have you?"

"No." She sighed flopping onto her back, her eyes closing. "And I never will."

"Why?" She was the self-proclaimed goddess of love, why wouldn't she tell someone that?

She opened one eye and gazed at him speculatively, "I'd say that you wouldn't understand, but you would, wouldn't you?"

He shrugged and she giggled, softer than usual, "I will never tell someone I love them because I'm afraid." She paused, twisting her fingers, "I'm afraid that if I qualify it, define it, the magical feeling will be gone. That I will realize that it was all a hollow sham."

He smiled softly, she was so child like and yet so mature, it was a conundrum he had yet to solve. And part of him never wanted to solve it. He grabbed her hand and put it over his heart, "I think you can say it. Just once, only if you know that it will always be true. Treat those words with respect. You are right, if you throw them around too much, they lose meaning."

He kissed her knuckles and released her hand, returning to his original position. After a while she got up and came close to him. She smelt of violets. Her lips brushed his ear, and so softly he almost didn't hear it, she whispered, "I love you, too."

* * *

This one is hard to explain, I always thought that even though she treated her crushes and such so flippantly, that if Mina was ever truly in love, she would have trouble telling them. Yet, she says it at the end, but in all honesty, I don't think she will say them ever again or only on special occassions. Keenan only needed to hear it once to be content and his understanding and willing to initiate physical contact was his small ways of saying "I love you". Mina didn't want to hear it at all because to her actions speak louder than words, and I can imagine her parents saying those empty words to each other over and over, but being cold to each other. Tchh..what do I know?


End file.
